Safety- an issue
In response to Chris’s post on this subject, I don’t think we will actually err on the side of caution. I have watched videos and seen many pictures on blogs of people’s children and my heart always does a little-uh-oh!I understand that simply posting these things is not unsafe but the idea of just ANYONE seeing them is a bit unnerving. It reminds me of a colleague who posted something on her blog that seemed rather condescending to those who were not yet up to speed on Web2.0. When I brought it to her attention, her response was: “But I thought I was writing just to my fellow Web2.0 buddies.” There we have it- informed, intelligent beings who also forget that what you put out there is for everyone to see.
So I just watched the slide show again and once again, it strikes me that, we the teachers, have largely taken on the role that rightly belongs to parents. I don’t mean in its entirety but in partnership. And there is where the difficulty comes in- how to educate the parents! We can easily block sites at school or at the very least, moniter what they are doing on the Web, but it is at home that many of them are involved in socail networks. I read(somewhere) that about 66% are careful about what information they post. Not bad! But what about the other third of our children who may be putting themselves at risk? How do we reach them with the enormity of the conseqences of revealing too much to who knows whom?
A lot to think about- a lot to care about.
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Hi Jane, As you know we have joined all kinds of websites and tried all sorts of Web 2.0 tools that have required user names and passwords. I was trying to keep everything consistent and use the same name and password so I didn’t have to remember or record too much. I joined the site TOONDOO in order to familiarize myself with it to use with a grade nine group. (I don’t have good access to Comic Life on Macs so this is a web based alternative I can use on the PCs in my library.) I charged ahead joining the site without too much thought and made my first cartoon. Sure enough, there was my first and last name displayed on my product! The FIRST thing I told the students to do was invent a pseudonym or pen name for themselves. I could use my own error as an example of what not to do!
Chris